This invention relates generally to telephone answering devices, and more particularly, to telephone answering devices utilizing a cartridge type player/recorder for recording a telephone answering message on one track of a tape cartridge and the incoming message on another track of the same tape cartridge.
Several types of telephone answering devices are known. Known systems generally employ a separate tape deck containing a short tape loop containing the answering message, and a second tape deck containing a much longer length of tape for recording incoming telephone messages.
While such devices can store a large number of received telephone messages, and are useful for business or commercial use, the use of two separate tape decks raises the cost of such units enough to bring them out of the price range of the consumer market. Furthermore, such devices generally have the disadvantage that after enough calls to completely fill the incoming message tape have been received, the answering unit continues to answer the telephone and to play the answering message, thereby giving the caller the impression that his message has been recorded although it has not.